Earl

As you bring up the subject, allow me to recount another Microsoft
service glitch. A little over two years ago, Microsoft brought out the
Intellimouse Explorer, an optical mouse which worked on a new idea. I
bought two of these rodents and was delighted with their performance: a
zillion times better than those things whose balls rotated, especially
for precision work like CAD (in the distant past, I used the
MouseSystems optical mice, but they never made the jump into Win32).
After about a year, one of them stopped working reliably, followed by
the other, a couple of months later.

As Microsoft has zero service for where I live, I phoned the only number
remotely relevant that I could find (an intercontinental call to
Ireland). After being passed from Ireland to England to Germany, in all
45 minutes, I was told that they would replace them, with a tacit
admission that there was a systematic fault.

Of course, nothing happened. An e-mail with their reference number
elicited no response. I've been waiting now for over a year with two
rodents.

Fed up, I decided to have a look at them myself. On taking one of them
apart, I found the cable went from a plug on the PCB up the side and
around the top edge and, on reaching the centre, made a sharp 90° turn
to come out. There is no strain relief of any sort at this point. My
diagnosis was simple: one of the wires broke at this point from the
constant flexing in normal use. It would have been simple to avoid, by
an elastomeric sleeve which would prevent flexing on the sharp
right-angled bend. Of course, someone should have known that such a
sharp bend was bad practice, anyway. I decided on some simple surgery to
repair the caudal dislocation. Careful use of a scalpel showed where the
intervertebral disc had slipped, causing damage to the central nervous
system and I cut it back to a cm above the point: I then rejoined the
nerves by fusing them with a tin lead alloy to where they entered the
brain, eliminating the plug and socket. This worked fine. I did the same
with the other, but with an improvement: I heat-shrank some sleeving
over the cable past the bend and gouged a wider path for it with a Swiss
Army Knife. The first one suffered from a caudal dislocation again after
a few months, but the second one is still working.

I was recently in a large computer supermarket and had a look at the
mice. The same, excellent, model is on sale still. I carefully examined
it. Have Microsoft improved it at where the tail leaves the animal's
body? You must be joking! It is EXACTLY the same as it was two years
earlier. Can you buy replacement cables? Not on your nelly! (Most people
with a small cross-head screwdriver could change it in ten minutes,
given instructions.) OK, I paid only 75 bucks each for them, but that's
a small price to lose their reputation for hardware, just as much I
offer them 0/10 for their software.

I found that Logitech were now offering an equivalent. It looked as if
the cable on them was slightly better supported at the exit, but I
suspect that it, too, went through a sharp bend. Unfortunately, the
Logitech cable was far too rigid for a mouse, so I didn't buy one.
Logitech also offer an optical wireless mouse, but I fear that this
would not be a real answer, as my desk is always cluttered and I fear
the line of sight would constantly be interrupted (and it was hellishly
expensive).

So, Earl, your story about X-boxes does not surprise me. Microsoft have
never been good at customer relations and I don't suppose that they ever
will be as long as William Gates Jr wishes to fill his pockets with
spondulacks, in preference to spending 1% of his fortune to ensure that
his customers were happy. Or, perhaps, the gentleman in question
realises that it would be a damn sight more than 1% to repair all his
customer relations. A few months ago, he was interviewed by the BBC
economist, Paddy O'Connell, who tried on three occasions to get him to
apologise for the tort he had caused Microsoft users in the past through
faults on Windows systems. In each case, Bill adroitly side-stepped the
issue with a clever non sequitur, while not denying that the faults
existed. I believe that he must be a world leader in amorality.

Brian

Earl Moon wrote:
>
> Ok folks,
>
> I think it's obvious to some who care, and I hope some do, I tend to go a
> little off the deep end with this quality thing. I abhor poor quality
> anything. Used to be, maybe still is, an auto parts lifetime warranty sucked
> because you had to take the alternator, or whatever, back every month, if
> fortunate, and get another. Though the replacement part was "free," just the
> replacement effort alone, for me, was worth more than the damn part. Well, I
> got sick and tired of it and changed the whole industry single handed.
> Believe that? I doubt it.
>
> With nothing happening on this site I'm reaching deep to stir the pot this
> time while being bored out of my mind here in Michigan. Hell, it ain't even
> snowing but the temps about nothing. Well, you're probably getting as tired
> of my rants as I am writing them, but consider the following:
>
> SEATTLE (AP) - Hundreds of people who bought Microsoft's hot new Xbox gaming
> console over the holidays received defective systems, and some said they had
> to wait weeks and endure shoddy customer service before their systems were
> fixed.
>
> While analysts say the number of flawed consoles is probably too small to
> spell serious production troubles, they caution that the long repair times
> may harm the software giant in its first major foray into hardware.
>
> John Kreis bought an Xbox the day it came out. But the 31-year-old Chicago
> man's $300 system stopped working almost immediately. Kreis said it took a
> month of aggravation with Xbox customer service before he got a replacement.
>
> ``The whole thing that was so frustrating (was) just the fact that still to
> this day I'm waiting for a call back just to explain to me what happened,''
> he said.
>
> The Associated Press spoke with about a dozen Xbox users who complained of a
> game system that never worked or worked for a few hours or days before
> freezing up. Most called the customer service response poor.
>
> ``I'm taking my Christmas decorations down and (my son) hasn't gotten to
> play with his Christmas toys yet,'' Debbie Mason, of Uniontown, Pa., said
> Thursday.
>
> She had just been told in her ninth call to customer service that, despite
> an earlier promise that the system would be sent back that day, it turned
> out to be broken again.
>
> Microsoft sales and marketing director John O'Rourke said fewer than 1
> percent of the Microsoft units - 10,000 units in this case - have proven
> faulty. Analysts say that's in line with the industry standard, and
> competitor Nintendo reported a comparable rate for its new GameCube.
>
> But analyst Rob Enderle of Giga Information Systems warned that a company's
> response to those customers who do have problems often is more important
> than how many units actually break.
>
> ``If 200 people have a really bad experience and they're vocal, then the
> impression is the product's bad,'' he said.
>
> During the Christmas season, Enderle added, any return that takes more than
> a week is ``a horribly long time.''
>
> For Microsoft, which shipped about 1.5 million Xboxes over the holidays, the
> stakes are high. With the highly regarded Xbox, the company is battling
> Nintendo and Sony in a hyper-competitive game console market.
>
> Microsoft already has been plagued with rumors of problems at its Mexican
> production plant after it delayed its U.S. launch date by a week - to Nov.
> 15 - and pushed back its Japan launch as well.
>
> The company has denied any major problems.
>
> Plenty of people who bought defective Xboxes got decent customer service.
> Marc Patri, 49, said in an e-mail that his Xbox was repaired and returned
> within five days - which O'Rourke called the time it should take a unit to
> get repaired.
>
> Microsoft uses outside companies, including San Antonio, Texas-based
> Harte-Hanks Inc. and Sykes Enterprises in Tampa, Fla., to handle its Xbox
> customer service. Xbox repairs are handled by Solectron Corp. of Milpitas,
> Calif.
>
> A spokesman for Harte-Hanks declined to comment. The other companies did not
> respond to calls seeking comment.
>
> Microsoft has seen no pattern of specific problems, said O'Rourke, and heard
> of no major delays with repairs.
>
> Kreis said it took nearly two weeks before he even received an empty box to
> send his faulty Xbox back for repair.
>
> And he got conflicting answers: At one point, customer service couldn't find
> his records. Another representative told him he would get a new unit rather
> than have his old one repaired. Another agent told him they never send new
> units out.
>
> Still later, someone called him and asked him how he was enjoying his new
> Xbox - which he'd never received.
>
> Finally, on Dec. 10, the repaired Xbox came back.
>
> ``I'll be loyal for a while,'' said Kreis. ``But I'm hoping I never have to
> call support again, that's for sure.''
>
> Any reactions? I mean, is 1% acceptable or what about the rest of the BS
> these people put on us, or are we to blame for wanting untested stuff before
> its time? What about the SUV tire thing? Does any of this really matter?
>
> MoonMan
>
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